It is said we are a generation of weak minds. We are a generation of narcissists. We are a generation without manners. We are a generation of feeling entitled. We are also a generation where everyone seems to have some form of a mental disorder, diagnosed or not. Millennials are known as “Generation Y” but are also often jokingly referred to as “Generation Stress”. However, it is not always funny. Approximately 20% of millennials have a diagnosed anxiety disorder. No one knows the reason for why this is so much higher than the generations before us. Maybe we just left the past generations undiagnosed. Maybe it’s the technology we use, or maybe it’s the chemicals we put into our bodies on a day to day bases. Whatever the reason may be, it affects all of our lives in one way or another whether you have it or not.
We all feel anxious from time to time, it’s human nature. We need to feel those butterflies in our stomach sometimes, but what if they never went away? What if every time you heard people laughing with their friends, you thought it was about you? What if every time you did a presentation in front of the class you had to resist hyperventilating? What if every time someone was upset with you or questioning you, you broke down in tears? What if you didn’t even know why you were feeling over-whelmed and anxious? What if at 13 years old, your best friend told you she was put into a mental health center because her anxiety was getting out of control and she was suicidal? That happened to me, and I couldn’t stop crying. I imagined what would’ve happened if I lost my best friend so suddenly. I wondered why she never asked for help, but then I realized, that i’ve never asked for help either.
It’s not something you like to talk about or admit to. When I was a kid I would refuse to speak to anyone. They just called me shy. I could never pay attention in class. They said I had poor focusing skills and that I needed to work on it. I would physically get sick often and they would only check my body. Eventually, it was learned that it was my mind. As embarrassing as I thought it would be, I saw a therapist. I saw her only a few times and then went away for college. Going far away from home is scary for anybody, but for someone with an anxiety disorder, it’s terrifying. I had a small anxiety attack before leaving because I thought about how I could never adjust to the change. It’s good to leave your comfort zone, but for a person with anxiety, they need that comfort. If they are not comfortable, they begin to shake and breathe heavily with negative thoughts rushing through their head, which often leads to them breaking into tears.
People you see every day can have this issue and you wouldn’t even know. Some have mastered the art of keeping calm with a smile on their face. You’d never think those people go home everyday and rethink everything they said and how dumb they probably sounded, and how they shouldn't of said it or at least said it differently. It’s the ones you wouldn’t expect that go home and cry for hours about how they embarrassed themselves, when it didn’t seem like a big deal to you. It doesn't seem like a big deal until you get a call at 2am with the person on the other line sobbing and repeating “I’m so stupid. I can’t do this anymore. I’m so stupid.”
I would call my good friend at home regularly after going away to school. I would cry for sometimes hours and be repetitive on the matter at hand. I couldn’t have asked for a better friend than her. She would repeat to me how much she loved me and how much she believed in me. She would tell me to take deep breaths and wouldn’t hang up until I was calmed down and able to go to sleep. She would never once tell me that what I was upset about was stupid or not a big deal because she knew to me, it was. Everyone needs a friend like that. Luckily for me, this has not been the case for over a year now and I don’t have that feeling to that degree anymore. However for some, this will never be the case.
Mental health is not a joke. Mental health is something that needs to be taken care of just like any other illness. Never be embarrassed to get help or advise someone to get help. Things like anxiety hold people back from living the lives that they want to, and sometimes end lives too quick. College is a very big step in life. Everything is changing and the amount of stress put on an individual is insane. Some can handle it, others need a little assistance. It is not a bad thing to get assistance. Take control of your life before it completely controls you.
If you ever need to confide in someone anonymously, here are some places you can go:
